Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Los Medanos College/Reading, Writing, Critical Thinking (Spring)

English 95 is a reading, writing, and critical thinking course designed to prepare students for college/transfer-level work. Students will read college-level material on contemporary topics and issues from a range of college disciplines, engage in discussion and essay-writing that demonstrates their understanding and analysis of these readings, and develop academic language skills. Students will read, write, and discuss college-level material, but with extra support from the instructor. Students will participate in engaging, collaborative activities designed to enhance their skills and confidence. Successful completion of the course prepares the student for ENGL 100 and other college/transfer-level courses.

Week 2
Welcome to your Wikipedia project's course timeline. This page will guide you through the Wikipedia project for your course. Be sure to check with your instructor to see if there are other pages you should be following as well.

Your course has also been assigned a Wikipedia Content Expert. Check your Talk page for notes from them. You can also reach them through the &quot;Get Help&quot; button on this page.

To get started, please review the following handouts:


 * Editing Wikipedia pages 1–5
 * Evaluating Wikipedia


 * Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you.
 * It's time to dive into Wikipedia. Below, you'll find the first set of online trainings you'll need to take. New modules will appear on this timeline as you get to new milestones. Be sure to check back and complete them! Incomplete trainings will be reflected in your grade.
 * When you finish the trainings, practice by introducing yourself to a classmate on that classmate’s Talk page.

Week 3
It's time to think critically about Wikipedia articles. You'll evaluate a Wikipedia article, and leave suggestions for improving it on the article's Talk page.


 * Complete the &quot;Evaluating Articles and Sources&quot; training (linked below).
 * Choose an article, and consider some questions (but don't feel limited to these):
 * Is each fact referenced with an appropriate, reliable reference?
 * Is everything in the article relevant to the article topic? Is there anything that distracted you?
 * Is the article neutral? Are there any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular position?
 * Where does the information come from? Are these neutral sources? If biased, is that bias noted?
 * Are there viewpoints that are overrepresented, or underrepresented?
 * Check a few citations. Do the links work? Is there any close paraphrasing or plagiarism in the article?
 * Is any information out of date? Is anything missing that could be added?
 * Choose at least 2 questions relevant to the article you're evaluating. Leave your evaluation on the article's Talk page. Be sure to sign your feedback with four tildes — ~.

Week 4
Familiarize yourself with editing Wikipedia by adding a citation to an article. There are two ways you can do this:


 * Add 1-2 sentences to a course-related article, and cite that statement to a reliable source, as you learned in the online training.
 * The Citation Hunt tool shows unreferenced statements from articles. First, evaluate whether the statement in question is true! An uncited statement could just be lacking a reference or it could be inaccurate or misleading. Reliable sources on the subject will help you choose whether to add it or correct the statement.

Choose an article. Read through it, thinking about ways to improve the language, such as fixing grammatical mistakes. Then, make the appropriate changes. You don’t need to contribute new information to the article.